steady as she goes
by Los Desperados
Summary: A hunt gone haywire lands Dean in the hospital. Jo isn't too happy about that. Domestic!AU.


**status **complete  
**prompt **the cover image  
**cover image **not mine; got it off of tumblr, but for the love of mine, I can't remember from whom exactly.  
**spoilers **about a couple of things. If you're not up to date with the series, read at your own risk.  
**background **the domestic!au. Jo and Dean are happily married, still (sort of) hunting, and have a boy named Matt.  
**notice **I had this short story written in a couple of hours after seeing the picture on the upper left hand corner. I didn't think of publishing it, mainly because there's some backstory that I couldn't fit in and is kind of underlined. But then I invented the Domestic!AU. I have more stories planned for this universe, so hopefully you will be spared of said backstory in the future. However, the main reason behind this, is that I love it when Jo is the dominant one in their relationship. Go, girl. The Antichrist quote is from a fellow SPN story which I can't find on the site anymore to recommend you. If I do, I'll let you know.

* * *

**steady as she goes****;  
**_a cowboy ain't easy to love and he's harder to hold._

* * *

Dean knows he's in for a bigass, brain-melting lecture when he finally comes to his senses and finds himself stuck on a hospital bed, with tubes sticking into his arms and nostrils.

She's standing at the door to his hospital room, talking to a nurse, when she notices that he has regained consciousness. She's wearing her old, worn-out plaid shirt that has a hole in the right elbow, the one she only wears at home, and Dean thinks that he might have really screwed up this time, if she caused her to rush into the hospital in _that_.

She says a last something to the woman she's been talking to and walks into the hospital room with fervor in her strides.

It doesn't help that she looks pissed as Hell.

"Hey," he offers in good spirit, hoping that he can make things easier for himself even by a notch.

When she takes a seat heavily on the edge of the bed, Dean knows that he shouldn't even dream of it. "Smooth moves back there, hotshot."

Dean casts his eyes onto the white sheets and suddenly there's something very interesting about the seamless whiteness. "It got the jump on me."

"Yeah, I figured that much, asshole," Jo spits back, and he flinches under his hospital gown because if there's anything more terrifying than a ghoul in the form of a pumped-up wrestler that's trying to eat your brains, then that's Jo Harvelle in full maternal slash marital mode.

"Sorry," he offers, just for the sake of it.

But Jo doesn't pummel him — she seems to remember that they're in a hospital and he's got tubes in his nose this time — so he thinks that's a win. Maybe.

Instead, she sighs, and it sounds so weary that for a moment he wonders if this is really _his_ Jo sitting right there. "I almost lost you back there, Dean. I almost lost you to a fucking ghoul, and if Sam wasn't the damn freak he is and didn't track down your ass, I would've been making a crossroads' deal right now."

And with that, any sign of humor that had seeped into their conversation just vanishes, and Dean's expression becomes dark. "You wouldn't," he warns, because she's sworn—they've _both_ sworn to never make a deal if something happens to either of them.

If they die, they'll stay dead. The chances they'll go to Hell anyway aren't too low, but there's still the off chance ol' Pete will fuck up the lists.

Then Jo smirks wryly, and Dean is oddly glad she's back to being mad at him. "Damn straight I wouldn't. Like Hell am I gonna leave Matt in your hands. Kid needs attention and food_—_and no, burgers are not nutritional. _At all."_

Dean shuts his cakehole at that, because it's true. He may have raised Sammy, and he might have turned out mostly okay, but it probably was dumb luck that the kid didn't die of food poisoning by the age of ten. And he's not really that confident in raising a kid that's entirely his own (and Jo's) by himself, because this is one thing in his life that he wants to get done right on all accounts.

"Sammy turned out okay," he insists, knowing that she's gonna call him on it, but it just feels so good to still be alive and having her bitch at him that he simply doesn't have a spare fuck to give.

Jo raises an eyebrow in mockery. "Right, right. How's he, anyway? Still not Antichrist?"

And that has Dean sealing his lips shut for good. It's more of a joke these days, but it used to be the truth and Sam did house Lucifer at some point, so he might have screwed up a few times when raising his brother.

Perhaps. Only a little, though.

"I'm serious though, Dean," she says, this time in a low, sincere voice that has the short hair on the back of his neck stand up. "I could have lost you back there. And you can't—you _can't_ just charge in, guns blazing, taking on any hunt that comes your way without a partner 'cos it's gonna get you killed. And you can't die, not _now_, because you've got people to—"

Jo pauses, tapping her tongue against her front teeth in thought. "Well, not to take care of; Gods forbid I'll ever need to be taken care of, least of all by you. But you've got us. And we fought so damn hard for there to _be_ an us. And we care about you. So you can't just pull a kamikaze stunt like that, because there are people you'll be leaving behind if it all goes haywire."

He opens his mouth to retort, but the look she's throwing his way silences him. "We both know it's most likely that it will. I mean—_hell_, Dean. What was I supposed to tell Matt if Sam got there a minute too late? That his dad went out fighting monsters like a damn hero? 'Cause that's not a hero you were being back there. You were a dimwit that charged in without thinking that it's not just about him anymore."

And that's when Dean knows how much of what they've struggled to build he's fucked up with his irresponsibility, because there's a goddamn tear sliding down Jo's cheek and she doesn't even have the decency to wipe it off. Jo doesn't cry. She yells and bites and claws and hits him with Bobby's old encyclopedias of weirdness, but she never cries.

And it makes Dean's heart clench at the knowledge that the asshole who has made her cry is no one but him.

"Shit. You can't fucking do that, Dean. It's not just you and the endless road anymore. There's Matt, and me and—there's _us_. You can't fuck us up because chasing down a ghoul sounded like a good idea inside your fucking head."

She speaks so calmly, so sincerely that Dean is scared. He's scared because he's suddenly aware of what he's got to lose, what he's come so close to losing without him even realizing it. He reaches out a hand to touch her face. "Babe—"

Jo swats his hand away and stands up. "Don't 'babe' me, Dean. Don't. This is the last time I'm letting you get away with this." A deep, unnerving breath then. Her shoulders fall and she shakes her head. "You're a fucking dumbass, you know that?"

Dean doesn't have the time to comprehend exactly what she's saying, what is happening, because Jo crosses the few feet that separate them and slams her lips so hard against his it fucking hurts. Her nose is tugging on the tube that rests over his cheekbone, and he can't fucking breathe with her tongue blocking his airways.

But it doesn't matter. Because this is what forgiveness feels like. Having your breath stolen away, feeling that you are moments away from death, then swimming back into the surface and taking in everything that's life.

He's panting when Jo pulls away, and she grins like the fox that got the hare, so pure and evil that he laughs and almost chokes on the oxygen that's being administered to his body. Jo shakes her head at her childish husband before making her way to the door.

"Gotta check on the kid," she says, gripping the door handle and smiling fondly at him. "Good to have you back, asshat."


End file.
